8 ms·

Trail blazing innovators - Use Emacs

55 points by lbj 16y ago

openfly 16y ago
vi vs emacs war plz 2 not have.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
dgrant 16y ago
The only Emacs command you need to know is CTRL-X CTRL-C
mhd 16y ago
Wanderlust doesn't look to bad. Had some trouble getting GNUS to work with GMail, might give that one a try.
koenigdavidmj 16y ago
Seems like Emacs is just becoming a large window manager in itself. Instead of having a lot of apps and using Alt-Tab to go between them, you stay in Emacs, have buffers, and use C-x o to flip between them.
- davidw 16y ago
  It's been that way for the 13+ years I've been using it.
- sp332 16y ago
  GNU screen is better at that, IMHO. But then screen doesn't have Google Maps http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1472314 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1472314 :-)
  - mahmud 16y ago
    You're comparing apples and mares; one is a tasty fruit, the other is nature's Toyota Prius. GNU Screen can not possibly have Google Maps or any other applicationy feature as long as it is a _vt multiplexer_.
robryan 16y ago
To me this reads "We're better than you because we're all using emacs". Sure making the best use of development tools is important but it's just a means to an end, that can be reached in different ways.
- WalterGR 16y ago
  Right. And strawmen like I know that there are many would disagree and claim that Mouse-driven IDEs and XML based configs are the way to move forward, but I firmly believe that such convictions stem from a lack of exposure. don't help the argument.
msluyter 16y ago
I used to use and love emacs, but I stopped because the various control key combinations were too hard on my hands.
- mifrai 16y ago
  I'm starting to reach this point too. And I can't seem to convince myself to buy fancy (expensive) keyboards - even though I /know/ I should.
  - lbj 16y ago
    If you haven't already, just swap your CTRL and CAPS lock keys. That makes for a pleasant typing experience.
    - graywh 16y ago
      I've done that, and I don't even use Emacs.
    - ecyrb 16y ago
      I used to use a Typematrix 2030, but have gone back to standard keyboards. I use viper and vimpulse in emacs, so I'm currently using the following mappings (in addition to a Dvorak layout): CapsLock key = Backspace (I hate that reach) Tilde key = Escape (for VI) Escape key = CapsLock (for when you need it) Backspace key = Tilde My windows keys also function as Control, so that I don't have to be super accurate when using my pinky joint (where my pinky meets my palm) to press it.
      - malkia 16y ago
        At first, this combination looks weird. But thinking about it, it makes great sense.
        ecyrb 16y ago
        Having the tilde so far away is pretty annoying in a shell, but I haven't invested the time in coming up with something better.
kqueue 16y ago
The title sounds like: Wear MJ shoes and you'll play like MJ.
- mannicken 16y ago
  I think the proper analogy is: if you want to be like Kurt Cobain, get a real guitar instead of playing Rockband on expert all the time. And yes, I did just compare Eclipse/Studio/etc to Rockband :)
  - mahmud 16y ago
    The Cobain analogy best fits TextMate or Notepad++, not Emacs. The Emacs analogy might hold for SrV or Jeff Beck; exceptionally good, but only a celebrity among a small community of die-hard fans.
mkramlich 16y ago
this screencast is the first thing that's made me seriously consider switching to Emacs from vi
- ecyrb 16y ago
  With viper and vimpulse you get a pretty good vi emulation.
- parfe 16y ago
  The important thing to keep in mind is that emacs is ridicously bad at editing text. It does everything else well, but coming from Vim you just need to accept you'll never edit text as well. edit: And to add some of the best emacs I got was don't worry about closing buffers. Focus on work and ignore the window and buffer management. In the end you won't notice if you've got greps/acks, manpages, emails, or whatever open because you're too busy writing code.
  - sharkbrainguy 16y ago
    > emacs is ridicously bad at editing text. The thing is I can't imagine thinking that, unless I was coming from vim. Coming from any other style of "editor", I would think the text editing capabilities of emacs were really good. Of course, I am coming from vim now, so I'm completely spoiled.
  - spudlyo 16y ago
    The important thing to keep in mind is that emacs is ridicously bad at editing text. I don't know why this is being voted up. This is utter nonsense and not supported by any arguments.
    - parfe 16y ago
      What do you mean supported by arguments? It's obviously my opinion comparing Emacs to Vim. Vim is excellent at editing text. Really really good at it. Emacs is not. It's better than this vanilla comment box in firefox for sure, but compared to Vim's modal editing it's a dog. People injure themselves typing in Emacs. It's actually dangerous! And my comment was getting votes because people agreed until you came along with your meta comment.
jff 16y ago
I tried it. I really did. I decided I'd be a rock-star code-god Emacs user that did everything in emacs. I set up Wanderlust, and by god it sorta worked with Gmail. Sorta. There were little problems with messages getting resurrected as "unread" even after I'd read them, and composing a message meant my "drafts" folder got pounded by incremental saved messages every 30 seconds, but whatever. Then I tried to find a web browser that runs in Emacs and will display pages properly, not in the broken Links/Lynx way (with or without pictures). No dice. Oh well. Then I started using IRC and my IM clients in Emacs. They worked ok, but it was around this point that I started to realize what an incredible pain in the ass it is to manage buffers in Emacs. To start with, you never really have enough space on screen, so a lot of the buffers end up being hidden. Ok, whatever, but then you realize it's a hassle to even switch over to a different buffer, with the M-x b type-some-of-the-buffer-name dance, since you can't keep them all on-screen to switch around with C-x o. Of course, C-x o begins to get cumbersome when I have more than a couple windows/buffers open on screen at a time. Then I realized that I'd really rather make my fingers feel happier (and yes, I use the swapped Caps Lock key) and just use this amazing tool we already have. It's designed for selecting things, and it moves spatially in 2 dimensions. I guess I don't look so haxxor-1337 anymore, waving that mouse around like a clueless Windows user, but I'm actually happy now that I left the Cult of the Key-Combo. These days, I read my email in Firefox because I just don't care, and I do all my coding and text-editing in Acme, because I do care. For all the bullshit Emacsians spew about "losing focus by switching applications", they're switching applications at least as much as I do, every single time they M-x wanderlust, or switch over to the Org buffer--they're just switching applications with M-x b, rather than Alt-Tab.
- holygoat 16y ago
  I've become really happy with my various ways of switching between things. Part of the reason why is that there are so many ways to do it, because I don't put everything in Emacs. I use a Mac, running various web browsers, Mac apps, Vim, Emacs, and connecting to Windows over Remote Desktop. I use: * Cmd-Tab to switch between Mac apps. Even works if I'm fullscreen in Windows: Cmd-Tab and I'm back to my Mac browser. * Cmd-~ to switch between Mac windows. Scoped to the current app, which helps when I have lots open. * Cmd-Shift-[ and ] to switch between Terminal tabs. No worries about the shell catching those keys. * Option-Tab to switch between windows within Windows. * gt/gT and the Ctrl-W keys to manage tabs and windows in Vim. * etc. Notice how I have various levels of switching? I don't have all of my tasks on the same flat plane, so I can switch between groups easily. Vim and Emacs end up as task-specific interfaces; I don't have to worry about getting my IRC client out of the way when I want to edit a few files, and the shortcuts to get to my browser is disjoint with the ones I use in my editor. Somehow all of these are internalized, so the complexity doesn't really affect me. I just notice how easy it is to get to what I want across multiple OSes and apps.
natep 16y ago
I expected this to be a survey of what editors trail blazing innovators use. I'm disappointed.
billmcneale 16y ago
emacs is to text editors what Dwarf Fortress is to video games.
briancooley 16y ago
The Clojure debugging stuff at about 12:00 into the screencast is a really nice piece of information.

55 points by lbj 16y ago

openfly 16y ago

vi vs emacs war plz 2 not have.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

dgrant 16y ago

The only Emacs command you need to know is CTRL-X CTRL-C

mhd 16y ago

Wanderlust doesn't look to bad. Had some trouble getting GNUS to work with GMail, might give that one a try.

koenigdavidmj 16y ago

Seems like Emacs is just becoming a large window manager in itself. Instead of having a lot of apps and using Alt-Tab to go between them, you stay in Emacs, have buffers, and use C-x o to flip between them.

davidw 16y ago
It's been that way for the 13+ years I've been using it.
sp332 16y ago
GNU screen is better at that, IMHO. But then screen doesn't have Google Maps http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1472314 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1472314 :-)
- mahmud 16y ago
  You're comparing apples and mares; one is a tasty fruit, the other is nature's Toyota Prius. GNU Screen can not possibly have Google Maps or any other applicationy feature as long as it is a _vt multiplexer_.

robryan 16y ago

To me this reads "We're better than you because we're all using emacs". Sure making the best use of development tools is important but it's just a means to an end, that can be reached in different ways.

WalterGR 16y ago
Right. And strawmen like I know that there are many would disagree and claim that Mouse-driven IDEs and XML based configs are the way to move forward, but I firmly believe that such convictions stem from a lack of exposure. don't help the argument.

msluyter 16y ago

I used to use and love emacs, but I stopped because the various control key combinations were too hard on my hands.

mifrai 16y ago
I'm starting to reach this point too. And I can't seem to convince myself to buy fancy (expensive) keyboards - even though I /know/ I should.
- lbj 16y ago
  If you haven't already, just swap your CTRL and CAPS lock keys. That makes for a pleasant typing experience.
  - graywh 16y ago
    I've done that, and I don't even use Emacs.
  - ecyrb 16y ago
    I used to use a Typematrix 2030, but have gone back to standard keyboards. I use viper and vimpulse in emacs, so I'm currently using the following mappings (in addition to a Dvorak layout): CapsLock key = Backspace (I hate that reach) Tilde key = Escape (for VI) Escape key = CapsLock (for when you need it) Backspace key = Tilde My windows keys also function as Control, so that I don't have to be super accurate when using my pinky joint (where my pinky meets my palm) to press it.
    - malkia 16y ago
      At first, this combination looks weird. But thinking about it, it makes great sense.
      - ecyrb 16y ago
        Having the tilde so far away is pretty annoying in a shell, but I haven't invested the time in coming up with something better.

kqueue 16y ago

The title sounds like: Wear MJ shoes and you'll play like MJ.

mannicken 16y ago
I think the proper analogy is: if you want to be like Kurt Cobain, get a real guitar instead of playing Rockband on expert all the time. And yes, I did just compare Eclipse/Studio/etc to Rockband :)
- mahmud 16y ago
  The Cobain analogy best fits TextMate or Notepad++, not Emacs. The Emacs analogy might hold for SrV or Jeff Beck; exceptionally good, but only a celebrity among a small community of die-hard fans.

mkramlich 16y ago

this screencast is the first thing that's made me seriously consider switching to Emacs from vi

ecyrb 16y ago
With viper and vimpulse you get a pretty good vi emulation.
parfe 16y ago
The important thing to keep in mind is that emacs is ridicously bad at editing text. It does everything else well, but coming from Vim you just need to accept you'll never edit text as well. edit: And to add some of the best emacs I got was don't worry about closing buffers. Focus on work and ignore the window and buffer management. In the end you won't notice if you've got greps/acks, manpages, emails, or whatever open because you're too busy writing code.
- sharkbrainguy 16y ago
  > emacs is ridicously bad at editing text. The thing is I can't imagine thinking that, unless I was coming from vim. Coming from any other style of "editor", I would think the text editing capabilities of emacs were really good. Of course, I am coming from vim now, so I'm completely spoiled.
- spudlyo 16y ago
  The important thing to keep in mind is that emacs is ridicously bad at editing text. I don't know why this is being voted up. This is utter nonsense and not supported by any arguments.
  - parfe 16y ago
    What do you mean supported by arguments? It's obviously my opinion comparing Emacs to Vim. Vim is excellent at editing text. Really really good at it. Emacs is not. It's better than this vanilla comment box in firefox for sure, but compared to Vim's modal editing it's a dog. People injure themselves typing in Emacs. It's actually dangerous! And my comment was getting votes because people agreed until you came along with your meta comment.

jff 16y ago

I tried it. I really did. I decided I'd be a rock-star code-god Emacs user that did everything in emacs. I set up Wanderlust, and by god it sorta worked with Gmail. Sorta. There were little problems with messages getting resurrected as "unread" even after I'd read them, and composing a message meant my "drafts" folder got pounded by incremental saved messages every 30 seconds, but whatever. Then I tried to find a web browser that runs in Emacs and will display pages properly, not in the broken Links/Lynx way (with or without pictures). No dice. Oh well. Then I started using IRC and my IM clients in Emacs. They worked ok, but it was around this point that I started to realize what an incredible pain in the ass it is to manage buffers in Emacs. To start with, you never really have enough space on screen, so a lot of the buffers end up being hidden. Ok, whatever, but then you realize it's a hassle to even switch over to a different buffer, with the M-x b type-some-of-the-buffer-name dance, since you can't keep them all on-screen to switch around with C-x o. Of course, C-x o begins to get cumbersome when I have more than a couple windows/buffers open on screen at a time. Then I realized that I'd really rather make my fingers feel happier (and yes, I use the swapped Caps Lock key) and just use this amazing tool we already have. It's designed for selecting things, and it moves spatially in 2 dimensions. I guess I don't look so haxxor-1337 anymore, waving that mouse around like a clueless Windows user, but I'm actually happy now that I left the Cult of the Key-Combo. These days, I read my email in Firefox because I just don't care, and I do all my coding and text-editing in Acme, because I do care. For all the bullshit Emacsians spew about "losing focus by switching applications", they're switching applications at least as much as I do, every single time they M-x wanderlust, or switch over to the Org buffer--they're just switching applications with M-x b, rather than Alt-Tab.

holygoat 16y ago
I've become really happy with my various ways of switching between things. Part of the reason why is that there are so many ways to do it, because I don't put everything in Emacs. I use a Mac, running various web browsers, Mac apps, Vim, Emacs, and connecting to Windows over Remote Desktop. I use: * Cmd-Tab to switch between Mac apps. Even works if I'm fullscreen in Windows: Cmd-Tab and I'm back to my Mac browser. * Cmd-~ to switch between Mac windows. Scoped to the current app, which helps when I have lots open. * Cmd-Shift-[ and ] to switch between Terminal tabs. No worries about the shell catching those keys. * Option-Tab to switch between windows within Windows. * gt/gT and the Ctrl-W keys to manage tabs and windows in Vim. * etc. Notice how I have various levels of switching? I don't have all of my tasks on the same flat plane, so I can switch between groups easily. Vim and Emacs end up as task-specific interfaces; I don't have to worry about getting my IRC client out of the way when I want to edit a few files, and the shortcuts to get to my browser is disjoint with the ones I use in my editor. Somehow all of these are internalized, so the complexity doesn't really affect me. I just notice how easy it is to get to what I want across multiple OSes and apps.

natep 16y ago

I expected this to be a survey of what editors trail blazing innovators use. I'm disappointed.

billmcneale 16y ago

emacs is to text editors what Dwarf Fortress is to video games.

briancooley 16y ago

The Clojure debugging stuff at about 12:00 into the screencast is a really nice piece of information.